MySpace Now Pronounces You Man and Wife

Posted by Kristen Nicole on March 25th, 2009 4:16 PM

Married on MySpace. It’s got alliteration, but does it have your vote of confidence? In partnership with Endemol, the production company behind a number of reality shows made for television and the web, MySpace is taking vows to give users the wedding of their dreams.

The new interactive online series is set to air in May, with 13 episodes and a live wedding ceremony concluding the show in August, but submissions for the show open up today. The deadline is April 17th and the finalists for Married on MySpace will be announced on April 24th. Similar to wedding shows seen on morning news programs or the Lifetime Network, its the viewers (in this case, MySpace users) that determine which lucky couple will get an all-expenses-paid wedding.

And it’s not just the couple that MySpace users get to choose. The attire, bachelor and bachelorette parties and wedding location will also be selected by MySpace users, making this a truely interactive series made for an online community. Voting will take place for two wedding elements each week leading up to the nuptials. Talk about crowd sourcing.

In addition to having MySpace users picking some of the major wedding-related events, the whole thing will be chronicled and featured on MySpace, with its very own video channel. A series profile page will also give spotlights to exclusive content like profiles of the wedding party, behind the scenes footage and blogs from the couple.

So has the wedding reality phenomonon gotten out of hand when we turn to MySpace for entertainment? A number of cross-promotional partners and sponsors don’t seem to think so. The Knot is an editorial content sponsor and will be providing wedding and style experts to help plan the wedding. Additional content from The Knot’s application, My Inner Bride, will also allow MySpace users to create bride avatars and further engage themselves in this unique online event.

Another sponsor, Touchstone Pictures’ “The Proposal,” makes the Married on MySpace series look like a well integrated marketing ploy, but I don’t think that will matter much once the entertainment value of a social network’s users deciding the fate of one couple’s wedded bliss. It looks like this is the next step in content distribution and marketing on MySpace, merely emphasizing MySpace’s larger initiatives to diversify the very meaning of a social network as the company becomes more media-centric from a creation standpoint.